Instant Chip Extruder

[930913]

Before I think too hard about this, can someone shoot down the idea with some practicality?

Fill an icing bag with freshly made instant mash (potato flakes) and attach a square nozzle. Squeeze bag (mechanically in a final design) to extrude chip shape at a steady speed. Rapidly crisp chip by dropping it through a tube with heater around. (Thinking of a £4 hair dryer hack.) Optional: rotating blade to cut chips to length.

Instant chips on tap!

[Nigel Worsley]

> Before I think too hard about this, can someone shoot down the idea with some practicality?

I think the main problem will be throughput. Even if you keep the mash reservoir
hot enough that the middle of the chip doesn't need any heating (which will
mean making it out of something more heatproof than a bag!) the time
needed to crisp the outside will probably be too slow.

I just did a quick experiment, I held a paper napkin directly in front of the
grille of one of these:
http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories-tyres/42191/clarke-devil-340
It started to char in 5 seconds, I suspect that a chip will take at least twice
as long due to the higher thermal conductivity.

> rotating blade to cut chips to length.

That should work fine!

Maybe we should start a pledge for one of these: http://freshchips.net/

Nigle

[930913]

Hmm, so the longer the cooking tube, the greater the throughput. If it takes a latency of 20s to crisp a chip, then 10cm of tube will yield 0.5cm/s whereas a 20cm tube will yield 1cm/s.

For perspective, that's 30cm/min and 60cm/min respectively. At 5cm for a chip, that's 6 or 12 chips per minute.

[David Murphy]

this actually sounds pretty similar to existing chip/donut machines only instead of a plain old heater the mash/dough gets cut cold, drops into hot oil which slowly flows along until a revolving mesh picks them out and dumps them into a container.

which allows for easier temperature control.

bonus: you can make churros and donuts with different temperatures mixes and extruders.